At the interfaith press conference, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former Archbishop of Washington, said the growth of anti-Islamic sentiment was a “powerful moment that calls for a powerful response.” Cardinal McCarrick added, “our message is a message of working together.”
The Rev. Richard Cizik, representing the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, said “shame on you” to those who would burn another religion’s sacred texts. He was referencing plans by the Christian minister of a church in Gainesville, Fla., to burn copies of the Koran. He added, “you bring dishonor to the name of Jesus Christ.”
Opposition to the New York Islamic center is widespread in the US, even among those who would support a mosque in their own neighborhood, according to a poll released Aug. 26 by the Public Religion Research Institute and Religion News Service. Nearly 60 percent of Americans surveyed opposed building an Islamic center or mosque two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks, but 76 percent of those polled would support a mosque in their own community.
To be clear, burning the Quran is stupid and will cause negative consequences without really accomplishing anything.
That said, it is interesting that the two pictures I have seen depicting the angry responses of Muslims show people in one picture standing on an American flag and in the other, burning the flag. It would have been more symmetrical if they had burned a pile of bibles instead.
Secular Americans are included in a religious war whether they like it or not. When our government attacks a Muslim country it is seen as a religious action.
Why wasn’t there such outrage from all corners of the media, political and cultural landscape when some (Federally funded) “artiste” did the infamous “piss Christ” or the dung on Mary bit? I can’t imagine President Obama and Angelina Jolie getting on the national press to decry such a thing. Heck, I don’t even remember Cardinal McCarrick doing do, but everyone seems to be up in arms over the Quran bonfire. Ahh, selective journalism at it’s finest (lowest).
Dear me, gentlemen, I fear that, having read the NYT piece yesterday about the religious leaders gathering to decry the Islamophobic bigotry of those who oppose the not-mosque, I shall have to charge you with Islamophobia and bigotry.
We have read many a defense of the moderate Moslems and how we have misread the majority of American Moslems, but when we consider that burning American Flags in the US had all sorts of support – except from those who saw it as vicious and un-American – and the response to a cartoon in a newspaper, we have to ask what moderate Moslems anyone is talking about. This issue is not whether such exist – we suppose they do – but rather what there moderateness is worth if they do nothing but talk.
I read the Imam’s speech and it contained every oleagenous platitude one can think of. But I want to know what he and all his “moderate” ilk are actually DOING to stand in direct opposition to the
many many “radicals.” Talk is cheap, to coin a phrase, but action – this is what is needed. When will Islam be accepted? When they act, when they search out the radicals is their midst and turn them in to the police, when they demands a clear public accounting of where the not-mosque’s money is coming from, when they demand that the not-mosque plane be shelved until the fires of 9/11 have burned into quiet ash. I read the Imam’s platitudes and there wasn’t an honest word in them. Larry
RE: “Why wasn’t there such outrage from all corners of the media, political and cultural landscape when some (Federally funded) “artiste†did the infamous “piss Christ†or the dung on Mary bit?”
[sputter sputter] Why — the artist is an artist, that’s why! One of us!!
And these ignorant backwards poorly-groomed Koran burners are . . . just, just . . . ignorant backwards poorly-groomed, bad-hair people with accents, that’s why! ; > )
I think there are two reasons.
1) The Islamics will do all sorts of violent things in response to the Koran burning — and everybody knew that the Christians wouldn’t in response to any amount of blasphemy. There’s an understandable fear of that [although of course, we mustn’t say that out loud].
2) Libs don’t see the artiste as an emotionally immature shallow angry little boy. He’s rather a thoughtful, passionate, sensitive soul crying out against the mores of the bourgeois society. But of course the Koran burners are emotionally immature shallow angry little boys, and their cry out against the mores of the bourgeois society is . . . is . . . just evil and ill-bred. So the latter are deserving of all sorts of liberal castigations [which of course serve to egg on the emotionally immature shallow angry little boys anyway.]
The two are basically the same type, with one more acceptable to those who fancy themselves academic, intellectual Deep Thinkers.
So what do you all think of last night’s news interview where imam Rauf made a thinly veiled threat of violent reaction if they have to move the mosque? Maybe he’s confusing the mosque opponents with the tenants in his slum properties in NJ!
This Koran burning is largely a media created event. The “pastor” is a loon, and his congregation is reported to have only 30 members. If not for the constant attention of the TV media, this would go unnoticed. Does it not occur to the media moguls that the Afgans watch CNN?
The Danish cartoon imbroglio was also a created event. Apparently the blow up came months after the publication.
The lame stream media wants to equate people opposed to the GZM with the 30 or so Koran burners. Their liberal apologists/dhimmi wannabes will be very willing accomplices. The most polarizing president in the history of the country will do his best in the endeavor as well.
What will the majority of Americans do in the face of a concerted effort to portray them as Koran burners? They will get really p-o-ed.
Burning the Koran is not smart. Neither was burning the Bibles some church sent (in Pashtun, I believe) to a military man in Afghanistan. Burning books in general should be discouraged.
That said, I think it time people faced the fact that the West (us) is fully in conflict (often violent) with Islam. Islam and Militant Islam are interchangable terms, and have been so since the 600’s. The only encouraging note I have seen lately is the proposed formation of a modern Islamic university in this country, with the proposed intent of facilitating the integration of Muslims into Western society. Maybe that will work.
Maybe not. Read ‘What Went Wrong’ by Prof. Lewis. Think Tours, Lepanto, Vienna, Vienna, Cordoba, etc. etc. Not an encouraging history.
As much as it says about an rather obscure congregation in FL, what does this current situation say about state of worldwide Islam? Is it so explosively charged that anything to its dislike can result in open warfare? I cited the Mapplethorpe issue to my older son as a way of contrasting the situation, and asked why it was ‘acceptable’. His response, “Christians are running around killing people’. He then sort of backtracked not liking where he found his reasoning had taken him. If this conflagration goes down as planned, brace yourself for a far greater conflagration.
Well that didn’t take long to [url=http://newsbusters.org/blogs/alex-fitzsimmons/2010/09/09/arianna-huffington-equates-ground-zero-mosque-opponents-koran-burn#ixzz0z3xK3F10]explicitly prove my point[/url]:
[blockquote] Snatching the proverbial low-hanging fruit off the branch, Arianna Huffington compared the vast majority of Americans who oppose the construction of a mosque close to Ground Zero to the thirty members of a Florida church who plan to burn copies of the Koran on 9/11.[/blockquote]
From ++Rowan:
At the present time our religious communities face many challenges and many provocations. In this country there are those who speak maliciously about religion in general and often against Islam in particular; demonstrations in many of our cities are intended to provoke; and in other parts of the world the threat to desecrate scriptures is deeply deplorable and to be strongly condemned by all people. These are challenges that we must respond to with a consistent message: that we oppose collectively all such provocations and insist that there is no place in our traditions for violent response. In solidarity with each other we will resist all attempts to induce violence by a constant message of peacefulness and reconciliation.
An excerpt from his letter to Muslims
From the Washington Post:
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A Christian minister in Florida is canceling plans to burn Korans on Sept. 11, heeding an international outcry that drew criticism from President Obama and religious and political leaders across the Muslim world.
Rev. Terry Jones of the Dove Outreach Center also said that the leader of a Muslim group that wants to build a 13-story Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero has agreed to relocate the center. The agreement could not immediately be confirmed.
Brian, thanks for the good news!
For the record I’m against any book burning. But, really, is there going to be a chorus of official condemnations every time there’s a threat to burn a religious object? REALLY? I’m disgusted by the codependent reaction of our leaders and ESPECIALLY General Petraeus. Let’s tiptoe around the fanatics so we don’t offend them because they might hurt us. Bah. Grow a spine. A book burning is only today’s excuse to blow up innocents. Tomorrow… who knows? You can’t stay ahead of the curve with these absolutists and we have no business trying.
No. 14: I think the reaction of General Petraeus and the President is directly related to the reality that, in time of war, we have a lot of murderous enemies who thrive politically and militarily on their ability to paint America as a country of ignorant, loutish, Christian, barbaric, anti-Islamic morons. When we then have an ignorant, loutish, self-styled as Christian, barbaric, anti-Islamic moron with the power of the media behind him, it is a clear situation of giving aid and comfort to our enemies, enemies who will use it strategically to increase their strength at our expense, and tactically to heighten violent resistance and to justify abuse of American prisoners and allies of the United States. The President and the General not only have every reason to counter this, but every obligation. There is reason to discuss whether the President himself has to become involved, particularly since this loon of a pastor may not be the only one of his kind in a population of 300+ million, but there is no serious reason to believe that this is not a serious threat to vital interests of the United States.